1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a medical image processing method which identifies characters of a mucous tissue or the like in the vicinity of a boundary from an esophagus to a gaster.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, an endoscope device for carrying out endoscopic inspections using an endoscope has been widely employed in the medical and industrial fields. In the medical field, the endoscope is used by inserting an insertion portion of an endoscope into a body cavity so as to observe a portion to be inspected and to diagnose if the inspected portion is in the normal state or in the feature-changed state where its feature has changed.
In this case, if determination on whether the state is normal or feature-changed can be made by image processing from an endoscopic image, an operator can make an efficient diagnosis by diagnosing the portion of the determination result with an emphasis.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2000-155840, for example, describes a conventional example that a feature value is calculated on the basis of information relating to the shape of a boundary between a feature-changed portion and a normal portion by reducing an influence of an image pickup condition.
A Barrett's mucous is a squamous epithelium of an esophagus replaced by a gastric mucous at a joint portion between the esophagus and the gaster (mucous boundary) due to an influence of gastroesophageal reflux disease or the like. If the Barrett's mucous is generated for 3 cm or more from the normal mucous boundary on the whole circumference of an esophagus luminal section, it is diagnosed as Barrett esophagus disease.
The Barrett esophagus is on the increase particularly in the United States and Europe and causes a serious problem since glandular cancer might be caused with a high probability, and thus, early detection of the Barrett's mucous is extremely important.
The Barrett's mucous progresses not only in the case of occurrence on the whole circumference of the esophagus but often locally and causes a mucous boundary image in a tongue state or zigzag state (referred to as a Z line in some cases).
The Barrett's mucous can be diagnosed in some cases even if the squamous epithelium of the esophagus remains isolated in an island state in the Barrett's mucous and no boundary in the tongue state or the like can be found. Also, the squamous epithelium of the esophagus presents a white tone, while the Barrett's mucous presents a red tone.